A company effort

Ralph Adamo gave the entire staff of his Newport Beach financial firm, Integrity Wealth Management, Wednesday off to peel potatoes, chop vegetables and portion out salmon at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

They were paid as if it were a normal work day and given the option of volunteering at the kitchen or taking the day off. All but two of the eight employees showed up at 9 a.m. to help out.

Once the roughly 60 people — some low-income seniors, some unemployed, some homeless — went through the food line during the 1 p.m. lunch service and sat down at long rectangular tables with their meals, Adamo took a short break and tears welled up in his eyes as he talked about the experience.

“When I immerse myself in this and look at the people on the other side of the counter I realize they’re like us,” he said, choking up. “So that’s the rewarding part. I realize that their struggles are real and the struggles that we have are in many ways surreal.”

Integrity Wealth Management is the first company to partner with Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, but Executive Director Shannon Santos hopes they’re not going to be the last. She’s trying to make the new initiative stick where companies — like Integrity — handle all of the operations of the kitchen for a day, paying for food and the utility bills as well as providing staffing.

“With the economy the way it is we were trying to think strategically about how to generate more revenue,” Santos said.

Don Olsen, Integrity’s director of client relations, smiled the whole time he served side dishes. He said he hadn’t been on kitchen duty since his days serving in the Army and he was happy for the change of pace.

“It’s a break from the market,” Olsen said. “We’ve got a bull market here for food and it beats the bear market we’ve been living with.”

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.